Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for rewinding strip material as that material becomes available and more particularly to a comparatively simple arrangement for taking up such strip material in environments where the strip material becomes available for rewinding during irregularly occurring intervals and at variable speeds during those intervals. Even more particularly, the present invention relates to a strip take-up apparatus which exerts a relatively constant tension on the strip material regardless of the material feed rate.
A number of diverse strip material take-up reel arrangements are known and typically these arrangements are integral with the device making the strip material available. Classic examples are incorporated in magnetic tape recorders, motion picture projectors, cash registers which maintain a paper tape record of all transactions and conventional typewriter ribbon mechanisms, as well as numerous special purpose machines such as medical and seismic recording machines.
There are also a number of types of machines which generate strip material such as a paper tape printed output from a computer or calculator, as well as the printed output of automated typewriters and other business machines. The problem of retention and storage of such strip material records remains in part unsolved and the number of different attempts to take-up and store such strip material bears eloquent testimony to the unsolved nature of the problem. The auxiliary strip material rereeling proposals heretofore typically employ some sort of clutching mechanism between a power source and a take-up reel to compensate for variations in the rate of strip material movement. Such clutching arrangements are subject to wear, particularly when strip material movement ceases yet the drive continues. Such strip material take-up arrangements also typically employ a core about which the material is to be wound and when removing a reel of strip material, a new core must be positioned in the device preparatory to receiving additional material. The prior art attempts have also typically been relatively expensive and complex both from a maintenance and a user's point of view. It therefore would be highly desirable to provide an operationally simplistic and economical strip material take-up apparatus adaptable to a wide variety of paper and similar strip material handling problems.